Oral History
of
Edward J. Crateau
interviewed by:
Jerry C. Grover
September 21, 2009
ABSTRACT: Ed Crateau was a career Fishery Management Biologist in the Fishery Resources Program of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from 1967 until his retirement in March 2000. The early portion of his career was in the National Fish Hatchery System but opportunity led him to Alaska for assignment in Fishery Management that he followed for the remainder of his career. He was one of only a handful of biologists in the Fisheries program to be a pilot. His work with the Gulf-Coast race of striped bass and Gulf sturgeon on the Apalachicola River in Florida provided break through information in the management of these species and his extensive work as the Project Leader for the Lower Snake River Plan office in Boise, Idaho was innovative and set the course for the extensive fish marking and evaluation of project operations. Ed and his wife Shirley are retired in Boise.
Oral History – Edward Crateau 2
ORAL HISTORY
Edward J, Crateau
Boise, Idaho
September 21, 2009
JG: I am Jerry Grover, a retired Ecological Services & Fishery supervisor in the Portland Regional Office and I am with Ed Crateau doing an oral history in Boise, Idaho, about his career in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Ed, can I have your full name and your birth date, please?
EC: Edward J. Crateau. I was born March 24, 1939 in Dover, New Hampshire.
JG: Where and when did you retire, Ed, and what was your position?
EC: I retired from the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Office (LSRCP) here in Boise, and my position was as the Project Leader. I spent 12 years as a project leader beginning in 1988. I retired in 2000. I lived all over the country prior to that, but found that we liked Boise and liked the project and decided to stay here. We have now been here for over 20 years. When I retired, I had worked for the FWS for 34 years.
JG: Ed, when you retired what grade were you?
EC: I was a GS-482-13 Fishery Management Biologist.
JG: GS-13 and a project leader. How many people did you have working for you?
EC: The office had a total of five people, including myself and a budget of $13,000,000.
JG: What brought you into a career of Fish and Wildlife?
EC: Well…I was always interested in outdoors, wildlife. I graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a
degree in biology…wasn’t really sure what I could do with that. I was interviewed on campus for several different jobs at the time I graduated, and I chose to go with the Food and Drug Administration for the first two years of my career. I worked all over the New England area, working out of the Boston office. We were working out of Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, and all over the New England states. I actually drove a truck up through Maine for two months doing undercover drug work, which was prior to the formation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). I was trying to make drug buys from truck stops and doctors’ offices, and over-the-counter sales, at pharmacies, which was kind of interesting.
JG: Were these prescription drugs?
EC: These were all prescription drugs, yes. We worked with physicians to get the initial prescriptions and we tried to do over-the-counter refills, double, triple, and over-the-counter sales of drugs that weren’t even on the initial prescription. And then after we were doing that type of work for about a year, the DEA was formed and a lot of the people from the Food and Drug Administration went to DEA, and worked for them doing that type of drug work. I chose to stay with the Food and Drug Administration until a buddy of mine who was in Food and Drug, Bill Wallentine, went to Fish and Wildlife Service and I had visited him and realized what a great life Fish and Wildlife Service was. I then attempted to get into the Fish and Wildlife Service from that point. I kept pestering George Balzer in the regional office in Boston, saying, “you really need to hire me”, and after about a year of pestering him, he said, “okay, we have a job for you in Berlin, New Hampshire,” and so I went to work at a fish hatchery in Northern New Hampshire for a couple of years under Dan McKinnon.
JG: Were you a permanent employment position with Food and Drug and so you converted over…or did they have to make a brand new hire…or what?
EC: I was a permanent government employee with Food and Drug Administration and went over to Fish and Wildlife Services as a permanent employee…permanent full-time.
JG: What grade?
EC: As a GS-7 Fishery Biologist, I believe, at the time. I think I was a GS-9 at the Food and Drug, but I took a down-grade to come to Fish and Wildlife Service, just because I wanted to do that. I worked at the Berlin National Fish Hatchery in the White Mountain National Forest of Northern New Hampshire for two years. It was a very remote hatchery and I ended up doing all kinds of things. In tough winters, we actually plowed roads and sanded roads. I learned how to run a plow truck and how to sand five miles of White Mountain National Forest road…it seemed like it snowed every day during the winter time and probably had 10 to 15 foot snow banks before the winter was over. I was feeding fish through the ice, running snow machines up to some of the remote areas of the hatchery, tried to feed the fish to keep them alive during the winter time. Pretty interesting time.
JG: You spent two years there? And then where’d you get to your relief?
EC: From that point, I had a chance to go to Nashua, New Hampshire, to the National Fish Hatchery there.
JG: Not far from home, again?
EC: Not far from home. I spent a couple of years at Nashua, and then I think this was the sequence of events…uh…went to the Spearfish, SD, to the In-Service training school for a Oral History – Edward Crateau 3
year, went back to Nashua, New Hampshire for a short time, worked for Dave Golthwaite in Nashua.
Then, I had a chance…oh…while I was in Berlin, I forgot to mention, I always had an interest in flying. I had an interest in flying before I even went to Fish and Wildlife Service. I tried to get into the Air Force as a pilot before I started…even started my career with Food and Drug and with Fish and Wildlife Service. I couldn’t get in because of an eye problem. I got my pilot’s license in New Hampshire while I was there thinking that that would help me in my career to try to get to Alaska, and it did. I always wanted to go to Alaska. There were some openings in what I had applied for and they required a pilot’s license. That got me to Alaska with a biology degree and some experience in fisheries and with a pilot’s license. They were opening two or three new offices and…I started up there in Kenai, under Jon Nelson. That was the time when Gordy Watson was the Area Manager for Alaska before Alaska was actually a region. I worked under Jon Nelson and actually was taught really how to fly by the Fish and Wildlife Service. I got a commercial instrument rating while I was in Alaska.
JG: What grade were you at that time, GS grade?
EC: I think I..I actually went up there as a GS- 11…I think I got a promotion to go there as an 11. Umm…and worked under Jon for, I think it was about…two years. Then Jon left…Jon Nelson left Alaska, and I became project leader and spent another four years there. I picked up about 1500 hours of flying time while I was there as one of the region’s fishery biologist/pilot…what they call dual function biologist pilot for the Fish and Wildlife Service. There were just a handful of us in Alaska at that time. I got to see the entire State, worked all over the State of Alaska. I spent two summers up on the Arctic coast doing inventory work on the lakes and rivers of the Arctic coast on the north slope of the Brooks Range. I did some of the inventory work with Norville Neitch. We were project leaders for a project that really took two years to develop and uh…to gather information on the waters of the Arctic coast, prior to oil exploration. The oil companies were targeting areas that they were going to do some drill work, and the drilling required a lot of water and they were probably going to de- water sitting bodies of water and we wanted to make sure that those were not important fishery resources.
JG: So this was kind of like pre-permitting?
EC: Pre-permitting, that is correct. And, it was a quick-and-dirty, really, general inventory of the…of different types of waters on the Arctic coast prior to oil drilling…and that was used to direct and prevent oil companies from going in…from drilling in certain areas and to allow them to drill in other areas.
JG: Ed, I would like to step back for a minute. You mentioned that -- in my knowledge in the history and people that were in fish hatcheries doing fish hatchery work -- selected for your training school was a big plus. Who also attended that year with you?
EC: There was one guy from the state of Michigan, Bob Copeland, from the Fish and Wildlife Service was Bill Wallantine. Paul Janacky was one of the guys that was there. Umm…Dwayne Wainright was…was there. Umm…there were a couple of others from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Henn Gruenthall, Joe Webster and others; I just don’t recall their names right now.
JG: That was a year-long training session? We’re inclined to think of Fish Hatchery Management…
EC: It was Fisheries Management-oriented. People with fisheries backgrounds were to get training in the areas of fishery management, not just fish hatchery operations.
JG: Okay. Back to Alaska. You were up there doing quick-and-dirty survey work…then where?
EC: Well…I spent six years in Alaska…loved every minute of it. It was a great experience…but the winters were getting pretty long and uh…my wife was getting a little bit antsy about living…about, letting things go by on the lower 48. Because you know…Alaska was a little bit behind the times, you know…it was just getting time to leave…so uh…we went from New Hampshire to Alaska, I went from Alaska and applied for a job at a Panama City, Florida, so again went across the county again, all the way from the far extreme from Alaska to Florida in August of 1986.
I think it was 1986 we packed up and left Alaska, and transferred to Panama City, Florida. I was the Project Leader there for the Apalachicola River Project which involved the Gulf coast race of striped bass and sturgeon. I worked on that project for eight years…umm…another wonderful opportunity…met some great people…had some great people working for me. I hired and worked with Charles Wooley…now an assistant regional director, I believe in Minneapolis.
JG: The Deputy Regional Director in Region 3.
EC: The Deputy Regional Director, yeah. He was one of the best employees I have ever had. Actually, I hired him in temporary position in Alaska…first met him there…and knew of him from his work in Alaska. And then, I had the opportunity when I was in Panama City, Florida, when we had an opening there, to hire him…he was an excellent employee. Really helped make that project a success. He was such a capable guy.
JG What was the…you said the Apalachicola River strain of striped bass. What was their problem?
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EC: Well, there was a lot of activity going on in the Apalachicola River…it was the Corps of Engineers on dredging, and habitat manipulation and we were trying to maintain a population and actually increase the population in the Gulf-race striped bass and they were on the verge…on a really rapid decline when we got there. It was a unique subspecies of the striped bass, and we were trying to preserve that subspecies, and also sturgeon that were on a decline. From every indication that we could gather, people had been overfishing and there were other different bits of information. So…we were trying to at least stop the decline, increase the population, and protect the habitats of both the Gulf sturgeon and the Gulf race of striped bass.
JG: At that office, there was also, a Law Enforcement person? And an Ecological Services office?
EC: That’s correct. Yeah, it was a multi-functioning office…and we did work together quite a bit with the people of Law Enforcement and Ecological Services office down there.
JG: Did you have any luck, could you measure your success? Sometimes it takes awhile.
EC: Well…I think we…we…got a pretty good inventory of what the resource was, which was lacking before we got there, and I think we had a stable population; we were able to identify what the important rearing and spawning habitats were for both of those species. We were able to protect those areas, those habitats. I am not sure that we had an increase in population but I think we were able to stabilize the population while we were there.
JG: What innovative things did you use there for your work?
EC: We did a lot of actual radio tracking and sonic tracking of both striped bass and sturgeon. We were able to attach external radio transmitters to the backs of the sturgeon which was kind of a first time that it had ever been done. We were actually internally planting transmitters into the striped bass to be able track them throughout the entire year to find out what their range and what their habitats were at certain times of the year and where they were going to spawn. We also learned where they were rearing and concentrating during certain parts of their life cycle.
JG: Were you there when the Welaka National Fish Hatchery of Florida was attempting to culture these fish?
EC: Yes! As a matter of fact…Jerry Grover was my supervisor in the Area Office out of Jacksonville, FL and the Welaka National Fish Hatchery was an important part of our activities. We worked very closely with them in trying to culture the Gulf-race striped bass, and were actually capturing adult striped bass and transporting them to the hatchery in Welaka where they were spawned. After rearing them, we were transporting the progeny back to the Apalachicola River for reintroduction.
JG: What was your grade at that time, your GS grade?
EC: I was a GS-13.
JG: What happened after Panama?
EC: Well, I had met Fred Vincent in New Hampshire. He was a Fishery Management Biologist when I was at the hatchery in New Hampshire. We became pretty good friends and a mutual respect was developed through our acquaintance. Fred went to Portland and there was a new project starting up on the Trinity River in Weaverville, CA, and he called me about the job. “I got the perfect job for you and you need to come out here for this job.” I was a little concerned about the arrangement because it was with the Bureau of Reclamation. They were the controlling funding agency and…with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
JG: Jointly located office?
EC: Jointly located office in Weaverville, funded through the Bureau of Reclamation. Supposedly dual responsibility between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service, with the responsibility for the fisheries work by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
JG: The purpose of this project was what?
EC: It was the restoration of the salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River. It was a mitigation project as a result of a dam on the Trinity River. So, our job was to stabilize and attempt to increase the populations of salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River, and identify the important habitat in rearing areas that were being impacted on the river, by the dam, and the changes of the water flows, and so forth.
JG: Sounds like you had a really fun office out there?
EC: It was a challenging time. It was not a great, high point in my career because of the funding situation with the Bureau of Reclamation. They use their funding power as a lever and it was not a good situation for the Fish and Wildlife Services to be involved in that project.
JG: And there were some personality differences?
EC: There were some personality differences between myself and the manager on the Bureau of Reclamation side.
We kept the work going and I hired some good people. We did a lot, we had quite a bit of funding, quite a bit of money. We worked very closely with the Trinity County in Northern California. And we worked very closely with the politicians in that County and it was a unique funding Oral History – Edward Crateau 5
opportunity for that County. It meant a lot of money coming into the county for mitigation work.
JG: What was your role with the Tribes?
EC: The Tribes were somewhat involved, but not heavily involved in the work that we did. We did some funding of projects that they were involved with, but not extensively.
JG: This was strictly mitigation with Tribes…
EC: Strictly mitigation. For the dam…changes in the Trinity River. Correct.
JG: Okay. After Weaverville and the Trinity project, then what?
EC: Two years…two years of actually the longest years in my life in my career with Fish and Wildlife Service I spent there in Weaverville. I had the opportunity to come to Boise to head up the project here in Boise. That was the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan program. A very unique program funded through Congress with money coming indirectly from the Bonneville Power Administration. It was through a budget process to the Fish and Wildlife Service with lots of money to run the program. Actually, we were building facilities with the Corps of Engineers as the construction agency when I came in. Ken Higgs was the original Project Leader on that project and he got things started. They were actually building facilities, fish hatcheries, fish spawning and rearing facilities throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. He kind of got the ball rolling.
When I came in, we had two or three major facilities that hadn’t been completed. I worked directly with the Corps of Engineers on those projects. They were also funded by Bonneville Power to construct facilities in those three states to raise fish and to create the spawning and trapping sites throughout the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
JG: With the work that you were doing, was it more in mitigation or was it restoration of the fishery resources?
EC: It was a restoration and mitigation project.
JG: Restoring from the impacts of what…
EC: The four Lower Snake River dams. The dams were built on the on Lower Snake River, four of them. Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Ice Harbor. The river dams had a major impact on all the salmon and steelhead trout runs in the Columbia and the Snake Rivers because they restricted the migration of the adults back to the spawning areas. They also caused high mortalities for the outgoing migrants as they passed through those reservoirs and through the dams.
JG: And ultimately, some segments of these runs of fishes were listed under the Endangered Species Act?
EC: That is correct. That is correct. The wild…we had a hatchery program where we captured fish returning, where some of them were wild and some of them were hatchery returns, but it was the native fish that were listed. The hatchery fish were listed as a separate category under the Endangered Species Act. But we tried to import the genes of the wild fish into the cultured population each year at the hatchery as the native, wild fish returned. Did this for eight years.
JG: And how many hatcheries did we end up building? How many are we, were operating in the States of Washington? Oregon?
EC: And Idaho! We were contracting to the States, to the Tribes and the three states. It was the Umatilla, the Nez Perce, and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes that we did contracting work with. And, like I said, we had a total of 23 different facilities. It was a combination of hatcheries, trapping sites, fish rearing, and release sites in those three states. I think the total value of those facilities was somewhere around $200 million dollars, in today’s dollars.
JG: And what you were doing was passing through money basically?
EC: Pass-through money, and contracting work…and oversight of that work. Oversight of all the work, and directing the type of work that we wanted done.
JG: And there was a large evaluation component to this work too…with the fish that were being reared?
EC: That is correct. Again, we’ve had Dan Herrig. He was the evaluation biologist and he ran the program for evaluation of the work that we were doing to find out how we were stacking up year-to-year. It was to get a good handle on the effects of our work. Were we having a positive or negative impact? Was the population increasing or decreasing as a result of our work? Were we having an impact on genetics of the fish in the Snake and Columbia Rivers? All of these questions. We were contracting with the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho to do the fisheries and evaluation work and also to the Tribes to do the same thing. So it was a massive evaluation effort of the fish rearing program.
JG: How innovative was it?
EC: It was extremely innovative. I don’t think anything like that had been done anywhere in the country. It was one of the most unique projects, I think, in the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was unique from the standpoint of fish facilities, evaluation programs, the types of facilities we had, and the funding mechanism was extremely unique. Oral History – Edward Crateau 6
JG: I imagine the funding mechanisms were somewhat unique, too, because it was that philosophy of beneficiaries pay, that the project beneficiaries of the water and power produced from the Lower Snake project. They were in fact paying through the Bonneville Power Administration’s rate adjustment --paying for it, rather than the general taxpayer?
EC: Correct. It was a user pay fish restoration program, paid through revenues generated from the generation of power in the Lower Snake dams, and from the Colombia River dams. So it was a user pay program.
JG: The other federal agency, the big one, the Corps of Engineers was the construction agency because of their capability and knowledge about the building of fish hatcheries, fish ladders...
EC: That’s correct. And the Fish and Wildlife Services worked hand-in-hand with them on hatchery and facility design on all of the facilities that they built.
JG: Was it a good program, pretty smooth operating?
EC: It was an excellent program. There was some acrimony between all of the different groups that we worked with -- the three States and three Tribes didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye. We had one of the most unique programs in the country. We had evaluation seminars held at least once, sometimes twice a year, where we invited all of the participants to view and hear what progress we were making, to identify some of the problems that we were being faced with. It was a great project. I think one of the best that I have ever seen in the Fish and Wildlife Service in my career. And I was proud to be part of it.
JG: Let’s just take a minute here. You mentioned Shirley? Who was that?
EC: Shirley? Did I mention Shirley? (Laughing) That is my wife.
JG: Where did you meet…and..?
EC: Actually we met at the University of New Hampshire…well…actually we met in high school. I was at Dover High School and she was at a Catholic school that was in the same town. I knew of her then. Then we got to college, we dated, and we married after I graduated from college. She was still in college then and had another year to go…and then she followed me around to all the different places that we went.
JG: And this story about you being the college school bus driver, a lecherous school bus driver, and high school girls…taking them home? Is there truth to that?
EC: (Chuckles). Well actually, there is a little bit of truth to that. Because I was driving the school bus during my first year of college, and she was a senior in high school and then I did meet her…well, I actually saw her for the first time when I was driving the bus and picking kids up at the bus stop. It was her and two sisters. I thought well…they’re pretty decent looking girls and I kind of got to know them. I think they were the only ones I would stop and wait for on that route that I had. All the kids would kind of kid me about that, “How come you don’t wait for us…you only wait for them?” Anyway, that’s where I first met Shirley, and then we dated when she went to college.
JG: Then, the marriage led to a life of her following you and having her own career throughout the United States including Alaska.
EC: That’s right. Shirley followed me along. She was a school teacher in New Hampshire. She was a school teacher in Nashua, New Hampshire when we were at that hatchery. She was the director of personnel for the Kenai Borough School District while we were in Alaska.
JG: And she got paid more than you did?
EC: She did! She did make more money at first in Alaska. She was doing pretty well. I’m trying to think what other jobs that she had. When we got to California, she worked for State Farm Insurance Company there and she worked for the State Farm Insurance Company in Boise when we moved here. Then she became a risk manager. She worked as a risk manager for the State Insurance Fund in Boise. She had a work period in Boise doing that and retired from the State of Idaho.
JG: And no children?
EC: No children.
JG: Let’s change track a little bit. Now, there is an opportunity for some stories here…what are some highlights of your career? I mean flying was a major part. You are one of the few, if not the only Fisheries Biologist that worked for FWS fisheries program that was also a pilot.
EC: Right…that’s right! When I was first starting out and just had my private pilot’s license, fresh out of New Hampshire, I probably only had 50 or 60 hours when I went to the Spearfish In-Service training program. I wanted to stay somewhat active in flying while I was there, so once in awhile when I could afford it, I’d rent a plane out of the airport in Spearfish. I can remember Bill Wallantine and I going. Bill Wallantine also claimed that he was a pilot, I never saw him fly, but apparently he did claim that he flew.
Bill Wallantine and I rented an airplane one day and we went flying. Bill was big, he weighed about 250 pounds I think, and I think with myself and Bill and the fuel, we Oral History – Edward Crateau 7
were maxed out gross weight in the small, I think it was a Cessna 150 that we rented. We decided we were going to go up to Rapid City, South Dakota for just a trip up there quickly. So I get up there and you know…very little experience at the time, and Rapid City is a major airport for that area with a lot of the big airline traffic. I can remember flying up there one day and I was a little nervous about the controlled airport environment and all, in talking to the approach controllers in the tower. So, the tower clears me to land at runway 23 left, and so I said, “roger 23 left”, and then as I was coming in, I didn’t know which runway was 23 left and which was 23 right at the time. And they said, “we cleared you for 23 left,” and I said, “roger,” and he says, “well, you are on 23 right, you are clear to land either one, take your pick.” (Chuckles)
So we made the landing there anyway and I well remember the incident, and you know, an inexperienced pilot and some of the early mistakes you make when you’re in your early years of flying. Then, I really learned to fly when I got to Alaska. I had a lot of good training up there through the Fish and Wildlife Service, and also outside of Fish and Wildlife Service through contractors who qualified me for instrument ratings, and commercial ratings, and so forth.
Only one incident in all of the time I was flying up there in six years. I was flying during the winter on skis, retractable skis, and in the summer we were flying amphibious float airplanes. I can remember one day that we were flying. It was late in the season and we were moving some equipment from one of the Russian Lakes, a fish counting site, and I was transporting people and equipment from that site, and I was making landings on runway-to-runway, lake-to-lake, lake-to-runway, all types of different gear configurations, you know, gear stays up…sometimes it goes down…sometimes it stays up, and when you are landing on a lake and it stays up. Anyway, all types of different gear configurations.
I can remember one trip I had left one of the temporary employees off on one of the remote strips that we were ferrying some of this equipment to. As I was coming downwind, I noticed that the windsock was very erratic and the wind was blowing erratically across the runway. I saw the guy I had left there, he was down there at the end of the runway. I ended up turning on a final. I thought, “I’ll lower my gears on the amphibious float plane as I turn. On final, I noticed that windsock was whipping back-and-forth again and it caught my eye again, and without running through the check list again, I approached the dirt strip and as I came over the end of the runway, I could see this guy I had let off previously, Jim Schultz, waving as I came over the runway, and so as I passed him I waved back at him, and I thought, “Oh, that’s nice, for him to wave at me as I was going by.” As I flared, I thought, “Gee, I should be down by now,” and I kept going. All of a sudden I heard a SHHHHHHH, gravel kicking up and I thought, “Oh my brakes are frozen.” It was kind of late in the year for that to happen and I thought, “Well, the brakes froze up when I was in the air.” I didn’t realize it until I got out of the airplane that I had landed with the wheels up on the floats and here I am sitting there in the middle of this dirt strip in a remote place. Nobody else around but this guy and myself, sitting there with the wheels up on a float plane. So I thought, “Well, how are we going to get out of this?” Well, I thought it through and I thought, “Well, if I dig some trenches underneath the floats, I can lower the wheels and I can taxi out of these trenches.” So we spent the next three or four hours digging. I had a couple of shovels that were part of the equipment that we brought out there. Dug holes under the floats, scraped my knuckles, my knuckles were all bleeding, digging up dirt close to the floats. Dug the holes under the floats, made kind of a trench so it would incline, lowered the wheels, and taxied out. And then, filled in the holes and we took off.
The only problem was, I didn’t dig the holes quite deep enough and when I tried to lower the wheels, the hydraulics…a rod on the hydraulic system bent and I couldn’t get the wheels down and locked. So, I had to undo the rods from the hydraulic system to get the wheels to lock, which they did. And, I wasn’t going to say anything to anybody. I thought I’ll just go back and they won’t know a thing. Except somebody had seen me, sitting in the middle of this runway, with my plane sitting on the floats...and they had talked to people at Fish and Wildlife Service back in Anchorage. So by the time I got back there they knew all about it. I had to confess anyways because I had bent the rod and they got a good chuckle out of it and I learned a lot about flying with retractable gear airplanes. The old story was, anybody that flies retractable gear there are those who have, and those who will forget to put the wheels down. I learned a good lesson and it never happened again after that.
JG: Ed, during your career did you have a mentor, or anybody that really stood out as being somebody that was really a good person, that helped you along…somebody you had great respect for?
EC: Well, at the time when I first started out with Fish and Wildlife Service in the hatchery in Northern New Hampshire, Berlin National Fish Hatchery, was the guy who ran it -- Dan McKinnon. And, Dan McKinnon was a unique personality. He was an extremely brilliant man, but a little odd. Odd socially, and odd as a supervisor, but he was a brilliant guy. He was inventive, very creative, in so many different ways. I did learn a lot from him; although he was a difficult person to be around socially, and a very difficult person to work for. And, George Balzer who was the supervisor of the fisheries program out of the Boston Regional Office said, “If you can make it at the hatchery in Berlin under Dan McKinnon, you can make it anywhere.” So this was my test. And a lot of people that he had been assigned to at that hatchery in Northern New Hampshire failed and left in the middle of the night because they Oral History – Edward Crateau 8
couldn’t put up with Dan McKinnon. But, I thought he was a brilliant guy and I managed to survive that and I think that really helped my career with Fish and Wildlife Service because of my association with him and the fact that he did teach me a lot. And, I knew nothing about the fishery program, I was a general biologist. I knew very little about fisheries when I went up there, he taught me a great deal. So, early on, he was a mentor. After that, umm…I can’t think of any other person that I worked for that really was a mentor.
JG: There’s always a flip side to that, too. Like people that are mentors, there some others that you perhaps would just as soon not come across again? Did you ever come across those kinds of people?
EC: Very few. I can’t say that I really did, other than my association with maybe the person in the Trinity River project.
JG: That was Ed Solbus?
EC: That was Ed Solbus. He had a reputation and I think his reputation followed him from the Trinity River project and followed him even before he got there. I think the Bureau of Reclamation was looking for a place to put him because he was a difficult personality and difficult…and people had difficult times working with him.
But, I would say also, that my position with you, Jerry, in the office in Jacksonville, it was a good relationship that we had. You gave me a lot of freedom on working that project in Panama City. I think that was a very good situation there because of you as a supervisor in the situation out of the Area Office in Jacksonville. It helped me in my career and I felt I was better because of our association.
JG: When I got transferred to the Portland Regional Office and ended up as your supervisor in Trinity, you take one look at me and go to Idaho and left me trying to fill a slot down here.
EC: (Chuckles) That’s right. I have had a great career in the Fish and Wildlife Service and it was a wonderful, wonderful life. My time in Alaska was outstanding. My time in the Fish and Wildlife Service was outstanding. If I had to go back in time in my life, to pick another career, I don’t think I could pick a better one. Fish and Wildlife was a great family, and a great outfit to work for. Very dedicated people. It was a great life.
JG: Is there anything that you could recommend to folks…
EC: I would highly recommend it.
JG: Even, with the changes? I mean, you were in a time with a lot of changes. Even with today’s changes?
EC: Yeah. Even with today’s changes. I don’t know what the direction of the Fish and Wildlife Service is, how it has gone in recent years, but I would say that it is still, the philosophy of the Fish and Wildlife Service and what they do…great company…great outfit to work for. I would recommend it to any young person.
JG: Thank you, Ed. I appreciate your time.

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Oral History
of
Edward J. Crateau
interviewed by:
Jerry C. Grover
September 21, 2009
ABSTRACT: Ed Crateau was a career Fishery Management Biologist in the Fishery Resources Program of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from 1967 until his retirement in March 2000. The early portion of his career was in the National Fish Hatchery System but opportunity led him to Alaska for assignment in Fishery Management that he followed for the remainder of his career. He was one of only a handful of biologists in the Fisheries program to be a pilot. His work with the Gulf-Coast race of striped bass and Gulf sturgeon on the Apalachicola River in Florida provided break through information in the management of these species and his extensive work as the Project Leader for the Lower Snake River Plan office in Boise, Idaho was innovative and set the course for the extensive fish marking and evaluation of project operations. Ed and his wife Shirley are retired in Boise.
Oral History – Edward Crateau 2
ORAL HISTORY
Edward J, Crateau
Boise, Idaho
September 21, 2009
JG: I am Jerry Grover, a retired Ecological Services & Fishery supervisor in the Portland Regional Office and I am with Ed Crateau doing an oral history in Boise, Idaho, about his career in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Ed, can I have your full name and your birth date, please?
EC: Edward J. Crateau. I was born March 24, 1939 in Dover, New Hampshire.
JG: Where and when did you retire, Ed, and what was your position?
EC: I retired from the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Office (LSRCP) here in Boise, and my position was as the Project Leader. I spent 12 years as a project leader beginning in 1988. I retired in 2000. I lived all over the country prior to that, but found that we liked Boise and liked the project and decided to stay here. We have now been here for over 20 years. When I retired, I had worked for the FWS for 34 years.
JG: Ed, when you retired what grade were you?
EC: I was a GS-482-13 Fishery Management Biologist.
JG: GS-13 and a project leader. How many people did you have working for you?
EC: The office had a total of five people, including myself and a budget of $13,000,000.
JG: What brought you into a career of Fish and Wildlife?
EC: Well…I was always interested in outdoors, wildlife. I graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a
degree in biology…wasn’t really sure what I could do with that. I was interviewed on campus for several different jobs at the time I graduated, and I chose to go with the Food and Drug Administration for the first two years of my career. I worked all over the New England area, working out of the Boston office. We were working out of Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, and all over the New England states. I actually drove a truck up through Maine for two months doing undercover drug work, which was prior to the formation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). I was trying to make drug buys from truck stops and doctors’ offices, and over-the-counter sales, at pharmacies, which was kind of interesting.
JG: Were these prescription drugs?
EC: These were all prescription drugs, yes. We worked with physicians to get the initial prescriptions and we tried to do over-the-counter refills, double, triple, and over-the-counter sales of drugs that weren’t even on the initial prescription. And then after we were doing that type of work for about a year, the DEA was formed and a lot of the people from the Food and Drug Administration went to DEA, and worked for them doing that type of drug work. I chose to stay with the Food and Drug Administration until a buddy of mine who was in Food and Drug, Bill Wallentine, went to Fish and Wildlife Service and I had visited him and realized what a great life Fish and Wildlife Service was. I then attempted to get into the Fish and Wildlife Service from that point. I kept pestering George Balzer in the regional office in Boston, saying, “you really need to hire me”, and after about a year of pestering him, he said, “okay, we have a job for you in Berlin, New Hampshire,” and so I went to work at a fish hatchery in Northern New Hampshire for a couple of years under Dan McKinnon.
JG: Were you a permanent employment position with Food and Drug and so you converted over…or did they have to make a brand new hire…or what?
EC: I was a permanent government employee with Food and Drug Administration and went over to Fish and Wildlife Services as a permanent employee…permanent full-time.
JG: What grade?
EC: As a GS-7 Fishery Biologist, I believe, at the time. I think I was a GS-9 at the Food and Drug, but I took a down-grade to come to Fish and Wildlife Service, just because I wanted to do that. I worked at the Berlin National Fish Hatchery in the White Mountain National Forest of Northern New Hampshire for two years. It was a very remote hatchery and I ended up doing all kinds of things. In tough winters, we actually plowed roads and sanded roads. I learned how to run a plow truck and how to sand five miles of White Mountain National Forest road…it seemed like it snowed every day during the winter time and probably had 10 to 15 foot snow banks before the winter was over. I was feeding fish through the ice, running snow machines up to some of the remote areas of the hatchery, tried to feed the fish to keep them alive during the winter time. Pretty interesting time.
JG: You spent two years there? And then where’d you get to your relief?
EC: From that point, I had a chance to go to Nashua, New Hampshire, to the National Fish Hatchery there.
JG: Not far from home, again?
EC: Not far from home. I spent a couple of years at Nashua, and then I think this was the sequence of events…uh…went to the Spearfish, SD, to the In-Service training school for a Oral History – Edward Crateau 3
year, went back to Nashua, New Hampshire for a short time, worked for Dave Golthwaite in Nashua.
Then, I had a chance…oh…while I was in Berlin, I forgot to mention, I always had an interest in flying. I had an interest in flying before I even went to Fish and Wildlife Service. I tried to get into the Air Force as a pilot before I started…even started my career with Food and Drug and with Fish and Wildlife Service. I couldn’t get in because of an eye problem. I got my pilot’s license in New Hampshire while I was there thinking that that would help me in my career to try to get to Alaska, and it did. I always wanted to go to Alaska. There were some openings in what I had applied for and they required a pilot’s license. That got me to Alaska with a biology degree and some experience in fisheries and with a pilot’s license. They were opening two or three new offices and…I started up there in Kenai, under Jon Nelson. That was the time when Gordy Watson was the Area Manager for Alaska before Alaska was actually a region. I worked under Jon Nelson and actually was taught really how to fly by the Fish and Wildlife Service. I got a commercial instrument rating while I was in Alaska.
JG: What grade were you at that time, GS grade?
EC: I think I..I actually went up there as a GS- 11…I think I got a promotion to go there as an 11. Umm…and worked under Jon for, I think it was about…two years. Then Jon left…Jon Nelson left Alaska, and I became project leader and spent another four years there. I picked up about 1500 hours of flying time while I was there as one of the region’s fishery biologist/pilot…what they call dual function biologist pilot for the Fish and Wildlife Service. There were just a handful of us in Alaska at that time. I got to see the entire State, worked all over the State of Alaska. I spent two summers up on the Arctic coast doing inventory work on the lakes and rivers of the Arctic coast on the north slope of the Brooks Range. I did some of the inventory work with Norville Neitch. We were project leaders for a project that really took two years to develop and uh…to gather information on the waters of the Arctic coast, prior to oil exploration. The oil companies were targeting areas that they were going to do some drill work, and the drilling required a lot of water and they were probably going to de- water sitting bodies of water and we wanted to make sure that those were not important fishery resources.
JG: So this was kind of like pre-permitting?
EC: Pre-permitting, that is correct. And, it was a quick-and-dirty, really, general inventory of the…of different types of waters on the Arctic coast prior to oil drilling…and that was used to direct and prevent oil companies from going in…from drilling in certain areas and to allow them to drill in other areas.
JG: Ed, I would like to step back for a minute. You mentioned that -- in my knowledge in the history and people that were in fish hatcheries doing fish hatchery work -- selected for your training school was a big plus. Who also attended that year with you?
EC: There was one guy from the state of Michigan, Bob Copeland, from the Fish and Wildlife Service was Bill Wallantine. Paul Janacky was one of the guys that was there. Umm…Dwayne Wainright was…was there. Umm…there were a couple of others from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Henn Gruenthall, Joe Webster and others; I just don’t recall their names right now.
JG: That was a year-long training session? We’re inclined to think of Fish Hatchery Management…
EC: It was Fisheries Management-oriented. People with fisheries backgrounds were to get training in the areas of fishery management, not just fish hatchery operations.
JG: Okay. Back to Alaska. You were up there doing quick-and-dirty survey work…then where?
EC: Well…I spent six years in Alaska…loved every minute of it. It was a great experience…but the winters were getting pretty long and uh…my wife was getting a little bit antsy about living…about, letting things go by on the lower 48. Because you know…Alaska was a little bit behind the times, you know…it was just getting time to leave…so uh…we went from New Hampshire to Alaska, I went from Alaska and applied for a job at a Panama City, Florida, so again went across the county again, all the way from the far extreme from Alaska to Florida in August of 1986.
I think it was 1986 we packed up and left Alaska, and transferred to Panama City, Florida. I was the Project Leader there for the Apalachicola River Project which involved the Gulf coast race of striped bass and sturgeon. I worked on that project for eight years…umm…another wonderful opportunity…met some great people…had some great people working for me. I hired and worked with Charles Wooley…now an assistant regional director, I believe in Minneapolis.
JG: The Deputy Regional Director in Region 3.
EC: The Deputy Regional Director, yeah. He was one of the best employees I have ever had. Actually, I hired him in temporary position in Alaska…first met him there…and knew of him from his work in Alaska. And then, I had the opportunity when I was in Panama City, Florida, when we had an opening there, to hire him…he was an excellent employee. Really helped make that project a success. He was such a capable guy.
JG What was the…you said the Apalachicola River strain of striped bass. What was their problem?
Oral History – Edward Crateau 4
EC: Well, there was a lot of activity going on in the Apalachicola River…it was the Corps of Engineers on dredging, and habitat manipulation and we were trying to maintain a population and actually increase the population in the Gulf-race striped bass and they were on the verge…on a really rapid decline when we got there. It was a unique subspecies of the striped bass, and we were trying to preserve that subspecies, and also sturgeon that were on a decline. From every indication that we could gather, people had been overfishing and there were other different bits of information. So…we were trying to at least stop the decline, increase the population, and protect the habitats of both the Gulf sturgeon and the Gulf race of striped bass.
JG: At that office, there was also, a Law Enforcement person? And an Ecological Services office?
EC: That’s correct. Yeah, it was a multi-functioning office…and we did work together quite a bit with the people of Law Enforcement and Ecological Services office down there.
JG: Did you have any luck, could you measure your success? Sometimes it takes awhile.
EC: Well…I think we…we…got a pretty good inventory of what the resource was, which was lacking before we got there, and I think we had a stable population; we were able to identify what the important rearing and spawning habitats were for both of those species. We were able to protect those areas, those habitats. I am not sure that we had an increase in population but I think we were able to stabilize the population while we were there.
JG: What innovative things did you use there for your work?
EC: We did a lot of actual radio tracking and sonic tracking of both striped bass and sturgeon. We were able to attach external radio transmitters to the backs of the sturgeon which was kind of a first time that it had ever been done. We were actually internally planting transmitters into the striped bass to be able track them throughout the entire year to find out what their range and what their habitats were at certain times of the year and where they were going to spawn. We also learned where they were rearing and concentrating during certain parts of their life cycle.
JG: Were you there when the Welaka National Fish Hatchery of Florida was attempting to culture these fish?
EC: Yes! As a matter of fact…Jerry Grover was my supervisor in the Area Office out of Jacksonville, FL and the Welaka National Fish Hatchery was an important part of our activities. We worked very closely with them in trying to culture the Gulf-race striped bass, and were actually capturing adult striped bass and transporting them to the hatchery in Welaka where they were spawned. After rearing them, we were transporting the progeny back to the Apalachicola River for reintroduction.
JG: What was your grade at that time, your GS grade?
EC: I was a GS-13.
JG: What happened after Panama?
EC: Well, I had met Fred Vincent in New Hampshire. He was a Fishery Management Biologist when I was at the hatchery in New Hampshire. We became pretty good friends and a mutual respect was developed through our acquaintance. Fred went to Portland and there was a new project starting up on the Trinity River in Weaverville, CA, and he called me about the job. “I got the perfect job for you and you need to come out here for this job.” I was a little concerned about the arrangement because it was with the Bureau of Reclamation. They were the controlling funding agency and…with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
JG: Jointly located office?
EC: Jointly located office in Weaverville, funded through the Bureau of Reclamation. Supposedly dual responsibility between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service, with the responsibility for the fisheries work by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
JG: The purpose of this project was what?
EC: It was the restoration of the salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River. It was a mitigation project as a result of a dam on the Trinity River. So, our job was to stabilize and attempt to increase the populations of salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River, and identify the important habitat in rearing areas that were being impacted on the river, by the dam, and the changes of the water flows, and so forth.
JG: Sounds like you had a really fun office out there?
EC: It was a challenging time. It was not a great, high point in my career because of the funding situation with the Bureau of Reclamation. They use their funding power as a lever and it was not a good situation for the Fish and Wildlife Services to be involved in that project.
JG: And there were some personality differences?
EC: There were some personality differences between myself and the manager on the Bureau of Reclamation side.
We kept the work going and I hired some good people. We did a lot, we had quite a bit of funding, quite a bit of money. We worked very closely with the Trinity County in Northern California. And we worked very closely with the politicians in that County and it was a unique funding Oral History – Edward Crateau 5
opportunity for that County. It meant a lot of money coming into the county for mitigation work.
JG: What was your role with the Tribes?
EC: The Tribes were somewhat involved, but not heavily involved in the work that we did. We did some funding of projects that they were involved with, but not extensively.
JG: This was strictly mitigation with Tribes…
EC: Strictly mitigation. For the dam…changes in the Trinity River. Correct.
JG: Okay. After Weaverville and the Trinity project, then what?
EC: Two years…two years of actually the longest years in my life in my career with Fish and Wildlife Service I spent there in Weaverville. I had the opportunity to come to Boise to head up the project here in Boise. That was the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan program. A very unique program funded through Congress with money coming indirectly from the Bonneville Power Administration. It was through a budget process to the Fish and Wildlife Service with lots of money to run the program. Actually, we were building facilities with the Corps of Engineers as the construction agency when I came in. Ken Higgs was the original Project Leader on that project and he got things started. They were actually building facilities, fish hatcheries, fish spawning and rearing facilities throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. He kind of got the ball rolling.
When I came in, we had two or three major facilities that hadn’t been completed. I worked directly with the Corps of Engineers on those projects. They were also funded by Bonneville Power to construct facilities in those three states to raise fish and to create the spawning and trapping sites throughout the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
JG: With the work that you were doing, was it more in mitigation or was it restoration of the fishery resources?
EC: It was a restoration and mitigation project.
JG: Restoring from the impacts of what…
EC: The four Lower Snake River dams. The dams were built on the on Lower Snake River, four of them. Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental, and Ice Harbor. The river dams had a major impact on all the salmon and steelhead trout runs in the Columbia and the Snake Rivers because they restricted the migration of the adults back to the spawning areas. They also caused high mortalities for the outgoing migrants as they passed through those reservoirs and through the dams.
JG: And ultimately, some segments of these runs of fishes were listed under the Endangered Species Act?
EC: That is correct. That is correct. The wild…we had a hatchery program where we captured fish returning, where some of them were wild and some of them were hatchery returns, but it was the native fish that were listed. The hatchery fish were listed as a separate category under the Endangered Species Act. But we tried to import the genes of the wild fish into the cultured population each year at the hatchery as the native, wild fish returned. Did this for eight years.
JG: And how many hatcheries did we end up building? How many are we, were operating in the States of Washington? Oregon?
EC: And Idaho! We were contracting to the States, to the Tribes and the three states. It was the Umatilla, the Nez Perce, and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes that we did contracting work with. And, like I said, we had a total of 23 different facilities. It was a combination of hatcheries, trapping sites, fish rearing, and release sites in those three states. I think the total value of those facilities was somewhere around $200 million dollars, in today’s dollars.
JG: And what you were doing was passing through money basically?
EC: Pass-through money, and contracting work…and oversight of that work. Oversight of all the work, and directing the type of work that we wanted done.
JG: And there was a large evaluation component to this work too…with the fish that were being reared?
EC: That is correct. Again, we’ve had Dan Herrig. He was the evaluation biologist and he ran the program for evaluation of the work that we were doing to find out how we were stacking up year-to-year. It was to get a good handle on the effects of our work. Were we having a positive or negative impact? Was the population increasing or decreasing as a result of our work? Were we having an impact on genetics of the fish in the Snake and Columbia Rivers? All of these questions. We were contracting with the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho to do the fisheries and evaluation work and also to the Tribes to do the same thing. So it was a massive evaluation effort of the fish rearing program.
JG: How innovative was it?
EC: It was extremely innovative. I don’t think anything like that had been done anywhere in the country. It was one of the most unique projects, I think, in the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was unique from the standpoint of fish facilities, evaluation programs, the types of facilities we had, and the funding mechanism was extremely unique. Oral History – Edward Crateau 6
JG: I imagine the funding mechanisms were somewhat unique, too, because it was that philosophy of beneficiaries pay, that the project beneficiaries of the water and power produced from the Lower Snake project. They were in fact paying through the Bonneville Power Administration’s rate adjustment --paying for it, rather than the general taxpayer?
EC: Correct. It was a user pay fish restoration program, paid through revenues generated from the generation of power in the Lower Snake dams, and from the Colombia River dams. So it was a user pay program.
JG: The other federal agency, the big one, the Corps of Engineers was the construction agency because of their capability and knowledge about the building of fish hatcheries, fish ladders...
EC: That’s correct. And the Fish and Wildlife Services worked hand-in-hand with them on hatchery and facility design on all of the facilities that they built.
JG: Was it a good program, pretty smooth operating?
EC: It was an excellent program. There was some acrimony between all of the different groups that we worked with -- the three States and three Tribes didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye. We had one of the most unique programs in the country. We had evaluation seminars held at least once, sometimes twice a year, where we invited all of the participants to view and hear what progress we were making, to identify some of the problems that we were being faced with. It was a great project. I think one of the best that I have ever seen in the Fish and Wildlife Service in my career. And I was proud to be part of it.
JG: Let’s just take a minute here. You mentioned Shirley? Who was that?
EC: Shirley? Did I mention Shirley? (Laughing) That is my wife.
JG: Where did you meet…and..?
EC: Actually we met at the University of New Hampshire…well…actually we met in high school. I was at Dover High School and she was at a Catholic school that was in the same town. I knew of her then. Then we got to college, we dated, and we married after I graduated from college. She was still in college then and had another year to go…and then she followed me around to all the different places that we went.
JG: And this story about you being the college school bus driver, a lecherous school bus driver, and high school girls…taking them home? Is there truth to that?
EC: (Chuckles). Well actually, there is a little bit of truth to that. Because I was driving the school bus during my first year of college, and she was a senior in high school and then I did meet her…well, I actually saw her for the first time when I was driving the bus and picking kids up at the bus stop. It was her and two sisters. I thought well…they’re pretty decent looking girls and I kind of got to know them. I think they were the only ones I would stop and wait for on that route that I had. All the kids would kind of kid me about that, “How come you don’t wait for us…you only wait for them?” Anyway, that’s where I first met Shirley, and then we dated when she went to college.
JG: Then, the marriage led to a life of her following you and having her own career throughout the United States including Alaska.
EC: That’s right. Shirley followed me along. She was a school teacher in New Hampshire. She was a school teacher in Nashua, New Hampshire when we were at that hatchery. She was the director of personnel for the Kenai Borough School District while we were in Alaska.
JG: And she got paid more than you did?
EC: She did! She did make more money at first in Alaska. She was doing pretty well. I’m trying to think what other jobs that she had. When we got to California, she worked for State Farm Insurance Company there and she worked for the State Farm Insurance Company in Boise when we moved here. Then she became a risk manager. She worked as a risk manager for the State Insurance Fund in Boise. She had a work period in Boise doing that and retired from the State of Idaho.
JG: And no children?
EC: No children.
JG: Let’s change track a little bit. Now, there is an opportunity for some stories here…what are some highlights of your career? I mean flying was a major part. You are one of the few, if not the only Fisheries Biologist that worked for FWS fisheries program that was also a pilot.
EC: Right…that’s right! When I was first starting out and just had my private pilot’s license, fresh out of New Hampshire, I probably only had 50 or 60 hours when I went to the Spearfish In-Service training program. I wanted to stay somewhat active in flying while I was there, so once in awhile when I could afford it, I’d rent a plane out of the airport in Spearfish. I can remember Bill Wallantine and I going. Bill Wallantine also claimed that he was a pilot, I never saw him fly, but apparently he did claim that he flew.
Bill Wallantine and I rented an airplane one day and we went flying. Bill was big, he weighed about 250 pounds I think, and I think with myself and Bill and the fuel, we Oral History – Edward Crateau 7
were maxed out gross weight in the small, I think it was a Cessna 150 that we rented. We decided we were going to go up to Rapid City, South Dakota for just a trip up there quickly. So I get up there and you know…very little experience at the time, and Rapid City is a major airport for that area with a lot of the big airline traffic. I can remember flying up there one day and I was a little nervous about the controlled airport environment and all, in talking to the approach controllers in the tower. So, the tower clears me to land at runway 23 left, and so I said, “roger 23 left”, and then as I was coming in, I didn’t know which runway was 23 left and which was 23 right at the time. And they said, “we cleared you for 23 left,” and I said, “roger,” and he says, “well, you are on 23 right, you are clear to land either one, take your pick.” (Chuckles)
So we made the landing there anyway and I well remember the incident, and you know, an inexperienced pilot and some of the early mistakes you make when you’re in your early years of flying. Then, I really learned to fly when I got to Alaska. I had a lot of good training up there through the Fish and Wildlife Service, and also outside of Fish and Wildlife Service through contractors who qualified me for instrument ratings, and commercial ratings, and so forth.
Only one incident in all of the time I was flying up there in six years. I was flying during the winter on skis, retractable skis, and in the summer we were flying amphibious float airplanes. I can remember one day that we were flying. It was late in the season and we were moving some equipment from one of the Russian Lakes, a fish counting site, and I was transporting people and equipment from that site, and I was making landings on runway-to-runway, lake-to-lake, lake-to-runway, all types of different gear configurations, you know, gear stays up…sometimes it goes down…sometimes it stays up, and when you are landing on a lake and it stays up. Anyway, all types of different gear configurations.
I can remember one trip I had left one of the temporary employees off on one of the remote strips that we were ferrying some of this equipment to. As I was coming downwind, I noticed that the windsock was very erratic and the wind was blowing erratically across the runway. I saw the guy I had left there, he was down there at the end of the runway. I ended up turning on a final. I thought, “I’ll lower my gears on the amphibious float plane as I turn. On final, I noticed that windsock was whipping back-and-forth again and it caught my eye again, and without running through the check list again, I approached the dirt strip and as I came over the end of the runway, I could see this guy I had let off previously, Jim Schultz, waving as I came over the runway, and so as I passed him I waved back at him, and I thought, “Oh, that’s nice, for him to wave at me as I was going by.” As I flared, I thought, “Gee, I should be down by now,” and I kept going. All of a sudden I heard a SHHHHHHH, gravel kicking up and I thought, “Oh my brakes are frozen.” It was kind of late in the year for that to happen and I thought, “Well, the brakes froze up when I was in the air.” I didn’t realize it until I got out of the airplane that I had landed with the wheels up on the floats and here I am sitting there in the middle of this dirt strip in a remote place. Nobody else around but this guy and myself, sitting there with the wheels up on a float plane. So I thought, “Well, how are we going to get out of this?” Well, I thought it through and I thought, “Well, if I dig some trenches underneath the floats, I can lower the wheels and I can taxi out of these trenches.” So we spent the next three or four hours digging. I had a couple of shovels that were part of the equipment that we brought out there. Dug holes under the floats, scraped my knuckles, my knuckles were all bleeding, digging up dirt close to the floats. Dug the holes under the floats, made kind of a trench so it would incline, lowered the wheels, and taxied out. And then, filled in the holes and we took off.
The only problem was, I didn’t dig the holes quite deep enough and when I tried to lower the wheels, the hydraulics…a rod on the hydraulic system bent and I couldn’t get the wheels down and locked. So, I had to undo the rods from the hydraulic system to get the wheels to lock, which they did. And, I wasn’t going to say anything to anybody. I thought I’ll just go back and they won’t know a thing. Except somebody had seen me, sitting in the middle of this runway, with my plane sitting on the floats...and they had talked to people at Fish and Wildlife Service back in Anchorage. So by the time I got back there they knew all about it. I had to confess anyways because I had bent the rod and they got a good chuckle out of it and I learned a lot about flying with retractable gear airplanes. The old story was, anybody that flies retractable gear there are those who have, and those who will forget to put the wheels down. I learned a good lesson and it never happened again after that.
JG: Ed, during your career did you have a mentor, or anybody that really stood out as being somebody that was really a good person, that helped you along…somebody you had great respect for?
EC: Well, at the time when I first started out with Fish and Wildlife Service in the hatchery in Northern New Hampshire, Berlin National Fish Hatchery, was the guy who ran it -- Dan McKinnon. And, Dan McKinnon was a unique personality. He was an extremely brilliant man, but a little odd. Odd socially, and odd as a supervisor, but he was a brilliant guy. He was inventive, very creative, in so many different ways. I did learn a lot from him; although he was a difficult person to be around socially, and a very difficult person to work for. And, George Balzer who was the supervisor of the fisheries program out of the Boston Regional Office said, “If you can make it at the hatchery in Berlin under Dan McKinnon, you can make it anywhere.” So this was my test. And a lot of people that he had been assigned to at that hatchery in Northern New Hampshire failed and left in the middle of the night because they Oral History – Edward Crateau 8
couldn’t put up with Dan McKinnon. But, I thought he was a brilliant guy and I managed to survive that and I think that really helped my career with Fish and Wildlife Service because of my association with him and the fact that he did teach me a lot. And, I knew nothing about the fishery program, I was a general biologist. I knew very little about fisheries when I went up there, he taught me a great deal. So, early on, he was a mentor. After that, umm…I can’t think of any other person that I worked for that really was a mentor.
JG: There’s always a flip side to that, too. Like people that are mentors, there some others that you perhaps would just as soon not come across again? Did you ever come across those kinds of people?
EC: Very few. I can’t say that I really did, other than my association with maybe the person in the Trinity River project.
JG: That was Ed Solbus?
EC: That was Ed Solbus. He had a reputation and I think his reputation followed him from the Trinity River project and followed him even before he got there. I think the Bureau of Reclamation was looking for a place to put him because he was a difficult personality and difficult…and people had difficult times working with him.
But, I would say also, that my position with you, Jerry, in the office in Jacksonville, it was a good relationship that we had. You gave me a lot of freedom on working that project in Panama City. I think that was a very good situation there because of you as a supervisor in the situation out of the Area Office in Jacksonville. It helped me in my career and I felt I was better because of our association.
JG: When I got transferred to the Portland Regional Office and ended up as your supervisor in Trinity, you take one look at me and go to Idaho and left me trying to fill a slot down here.
EC: (Chuckles) That’s right. I have had a great career in the Fish and Wildlife Service and it was a wonderful, wonderful life. My time in Alaska was outstanding. My time in the Fish and Wildlife Service was outstanding. If I had to go back in time in my life, to pick another career, I don’t think I could pick a better one. Fish and Wildlife was a great family, and a great outfit to work for. Very dedicated people. It was a great life.
JG: Is there anything that you could recommend to folks…
EC: I would highly recommend it.
JG: Even, with the changes? I mean, you were in a time with a lot of changes. Even with today’s changes?
EC: Yeah. Even with today’s changes. I don’t know what the direction of the Fish and Wildlife Service is, how it has gone in recent years, but I would say that it is still, the philosophy of the Fish and Wildlife Service and what they do…great company…great outfit to work for. I would recommend it to any young person.
JG: Thank you, Ed. I appreciate your time.